MY HEALTH

 POST # 501

The Thoughtful Wanderer at six months of age (August, 1955)

At the moment I am in between house sits, and seeing as I have no boneheads or furballs (aka dogs and cats) to write about, I thought that I would explore another topic.  My health.

For more than two years now, it seems like people all around the world are more concerned than ever about their health, and that got me to thinking about my own health.  I wanted to remember, when was the last time that I was really sick?  I can actually come up with three different years, 2003, 1980, and 1979.

In 2003, I was sailing with two friends across the Indian Ocean from Durban South Africa, to Perth, Australia, and I contracted food poisoning from of all things, uncooked lima beans, which I learned later on can be extremely toxic, and can cause death. I was basically down for the count for two days, and let's just say that my body found ways to eject the toxins in a timely manner.  I'll leave it up to the reader's imagination as to how that took place.

In 1980 after a suspect dinner at a restaurant in Pokhara, Nepal, on the eve of setting off on a trek through the Himalayan mountains, I felt extremely unwell, and ended up with a case of amoebic dysentery.  As one can imagine, that certainly didn't get my trekking off to a very good start, but eventually I regained my health.

Finally, in 1979, the first time that I lived in Melbourne, I contracted something that to this day I don't know what it was, but it put me out of commission for about four days.  I had an extremely high fever, hallucinations, and other bodily aches and pains.  Thankfully, I had a couple of room mates at the time, and they kept a close eye on me.  And then, just as quickly as it started, one day it ended, and I felt better once more.  My immune system had gone to work and somehow managed to get me back to health.  

The first two cases were obviously food related but the last case was most certainly something else, yet my body repaired itself, without any outside intervention.    That was forty three years ago, and I've barely had a sniffle since that time.  I suspect that I have been blessed with a fairly robust immune system.  It has been bolstered by the fact that it has been subjected to more pathogens than the average individual, due in part to my extensive world travel, in some countries that shall we say have less hygienic environments compared to Canada.

In the past two years, I've travelled around from one place to the other and been exposed to many individuals along the way, and yet I still remain healthy.  In all probability, I too have been in contact with the pathogen that has caused so much trouble around the world, and yet my health remains intact.  I struggle on a day to day basis with the thought of injecting something into my body, that could in fact compromise what I consider to be a healthy immune system.  It has been without a doubt, the most lonely path that I have ever followed, in more ways than one.

Yet, the journey continues, and tomorrow is another day.  In the meantime I remain grateful for my health for as long as it lasts, and I am reminded on a daily basis, just how fortunate I have been on this journey through life.

Still wandering, and still reading (Thanks Ted)

grateful for every breath,

Paul

The Thoughtful Wanderer